Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Becky Akers, columnist at Lewrockwell.com, discusses the Department of Homeland Security’s expansion into malls, hotels and Walmarts; the disputed safety of TSA body scanner radiation and millimeter wave technology; the DHS “If You See Something, Say Something” program for recruiting citizen informants (a familiar hallmark of police states); and why the 9/11 Commission’s primary duty was to recommend the creation of DHS.

Becky Akers, an expert on the American Revolution, writes frequently about issues related to security and privacy. Her articles and columns have been published by LewRockwell.com, Campaign for Liberty, The Freeman, Military History Magazine, American History Magazine, the Christian Science Monitor, the New York Post, and other publications.

Becky, for all her good works, is light-years away from any understanding of what milimeter-wave energy does, or can do, at various levels, frequencies and durations: Everybody exposes themselves to this stuff with cell phones, WLAN computers and Microwave ovens.

Ok? Got that? It's all around you, all the time.

Don't buy into Becky's scare tactics. But feel free to use them as propaganda on the stupid. (oh, that's what we're doing? oops, ok! )

The TSA hasn't even tried to prove that these are safe, and the particular frequencies used here have not undergone the kind of multi-million dollar testing that would be needed to gain a basic understanding of their safety risks. Do not subject yourself to these teraherz scanners – for a number of reasons – including the reason that the risk is simply unknown.

This MIT journal link below should be enough reason to refuse any scan. The theoretical risks would include higher incidence of skin cancer, but they simply cannot penetrate your skin to produce damage to ovaries / testes.http://www.technologyreview.com/blog/arxiv/24331/

They scrapped the MX, also called Peacekeeper – but why did they put the warhead from MX on Minuteman-3 ? Professor Paul Rogers tells that the warhead from MX and the warhead on Trident-2 D5 are designed to minimize nuclear winter effects when used against hard targets like missile silos.

I don't totally buy it that public informants are bad. I travel by subway frequently, and have once turned in a backpack which was lying under a seat. Interestingly, the driver looked right inside of it and concluded some high school student had run off disburdened of his books. But still – it was right to pay attention. By picking it up, I too could have played right into the hands of a terrorist, but the odds of that are slightly worse than winning the last big lottery.

What gets me is that the security apparatchiks are pushing to have these go mobile! Damn things can look through cars and even your own home. So what they're eventually doing is bringing Fallujah to your front doorstep. So do you submit and take your radiation "treatments" or will the day come when people are blowing them up? They're bringing the war home and they know it.

As always, my best regards to Becky Akers. She's a staunch foe of those colossal boondoggles, the Department of Fatherland Security and the Transportation Scam Authority. Their live-on-the-taxpayers'-dime goons do a good job of pushing law-abiding, productive citizens around, but nothing else.

By the way, if you see people criticizing or bad-mouthing the government, turn 'em in. Disagreement and dissent are things we can definitely do without, right?

It's obvious why stores ask for ID when you make a credit card purchase. It's to deal with the massive credit card fraud that goes on today.

I've lost count the number of times that I have changed my credit card over the years. Usually I would get a phone call informing me of "unusual charges" and asking me to verify them. I once had someone call me up and read my credit card number over the phone.

I don't even take my ID out of my hand. I just flash it for them, and that's enough.